AW'S  VACATION 


EMERSON    HOUGH 


"Maw" 


Fs 

3SV5* 


MAW'S  VACATION 

THE  STORY  OF  A  HUMAN  BEING 

in  the 

YELLOWSTONE 

!>y 

EMERSON  HOUGH 

AUTHOR  OF:  The  Sagebrusher,  Hearts  Desire,  The  Covered  Wagon, 
Curly  of  the  Range,  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


SAINT  PAUL 

J.  E.  HAYNES,  Publisher 
1921 


COPYRIGHT    1920 
THE   CURTIS    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT    1921 
EMERSON    HOUGH 


TIMES  has  changed,  says  Maw  to  her 
self,  says  she.  Things  ain't  like 
what  they  used  to  be.  Time  was 
when  I  worked  from  sunup  to  sundown, 
and  we  didn't  have  no  daylight-saving 
contraptions  on  the  old  clock,  neither. 
The  girls  was  too  little  then,  and  1  done 
all  the  work  myself — cooking,  sweeping, 
washing  and  ironing,  suchlike.  I  never 
got  to  church  Sundays  because  I  had  to 
stay  home  and  get  the  Sunday  dinner. 
Like  enough  they'd  bring  the  preacher 
home  to  dinner.  You  got  to  watch  chick 
en — it  won't  cook  itself.  Weekdays  was 
one  like  another,  and  except  for  shoveling 
snow  and  carrying  more  coal  I  never  knew 
when  summer  quit  and  winter  come. 
There  was  no  movies  them  days — a  the 
ater  might  come  twice  a  winter,  or  some 
times  a  temperance  lecturer  that  showed  a 
picture  of  the  inside  of  a  drunkard's  stom 
ach,  all  redlike  and  awful.  We  didn't 
have  much  other  entertainment.  Of 


MAWS  VACATION 


course  we  had  church  sociables  now  and 
then,  or  a  surprise  party  on  someone. 
Either  way,  the  fun  no  more  than  paid 
for  the  extra  cooking.  I  never  seen  noth 
ing  or  went  nowhere,  and  if  when  I 
was  down  town  after  the  groceries  I'd  'a* 
stepped  into  the  drug  store  and  bought  me 
a  lemonade — and  they  didn't  have  no  nut 
sundaes  then — they'd  of  had  me  up  before 
the  church  for  frivolous  conduct. 

Of  course  Paw  kicks  about  the  crops 
and  prices,  but  I've  been  living  with  Paw 
forty  years,  and  I  dunno  as  I  can  remem 
ber  a  time  when  he  didn't  kick.  He  kicks 
now  on  the  wages  he  pays  these  city  boys 
that  come  out  to  farm;  says  they're  no 
good  at  all.  But  somehow  or  other,  things 
gets  raised.  I  notice  the  last  few  years 
we  somehow  have  had  more  clothes  and 
things,  and  more  money  in  the  bank. 
When  Paw  bought  the  automobile  he 
didn't  ask  the  minister  if  it  was  right,  and 
he  didn't  have  to  ask  the  bank  for  a  con 
sent,  neither.  Cynthy's  back  from  col- 


MAW'S  VACATION 


lege,  and  it's  all  paid  for  somehow. 
Jimmy's  in  a  mail-order  store  in  Chicago. 
I've  got  a  girl  to  help  me  that  calls  her 
self  a  maid,  which  is  all  right  enough, 
though  we  used  to  call  Judge  Harms- 
worth's  help  a  girl  and  let  it  go  at  that, 
law  me !  My  other  girls,  Hattie  and  Row- 
eny,  are  big  enough  to  help  a  lot,  and 
Paw  reasons  with  them  considerable  about 
it.  I've  always  been  so  used  to  work  that 
I  think  I  can  do  it  better  myself.  I  always 
like  to  do  for  my  children. 

But  Paw,  ever  since  I  married  him,  has 
been  one  of  those  energetics.  They  call 
him  an  aggressive  business  man.  Some 
of  them  call  him  a  dominant  man,  because 
of  his  whiskers,  though  he  knows  well 
enough  about  how  scared  of  him  I  am. 
Only  time  I  ever  was  scared  of  Paw  was 
when  he  got  the  car.  I  thought  he  would 
break  his  fool  neck  and  kill  Roweny,  that 
had  clim  in  with  him.  He  did  break  down 
the  fence  in  front  of  the  house  and  run 
over  the  flower  beds  and  all. 


The  Park-Bound  Throng  of  Maws 

BUT  this  summer  we  allowed  we  all 
would  get  in  the  car  and  take  a  big 
trip  out  West — go  right  into  some 
of  the  parks,  if  nothing  happened. 

We  borrowed  our  tent  from  the  Hick 
ory  Bend  Outing  Club  that  Paw  belongs  to 
back  home.  The  poles  go  along  the  fen 
ders  and  stick  out  a  good  way  behind.  I 
could  always  cook  without  a  stove,  from 
experience  at  picnics  when  I  was  younger. 
The  dishes  goes  in  a  box.  Paw  nailed  a 
rack  on  top  of  the  fenders,  and  we  carry 
a  lot  of  stuff  that  way.  Cynthy  always 
has  her  suitcase  on  the  outside  because 
it's  the  newest  one.  The  other  girls  set 
on  the  bedding  on  the  rear  seat,  and  I  ride 
in  front  with  Paw.  We  mostly  wear 
overalls. 

Yes,  times  has  changed,  says  Maw. 

As  a  dispassionate  observer  in  one  of 
our  national  parks,  expressing  the  belief 


MAW'S  VACATION 


in  modern  speech,  I'll  say  they  have.  I 
have  met  Maw  this  summer,  ninety  thou 
sand  of  her,  concentrated  on  a  piece  of 
mountain  scenery  about  fifty  miles  square 
— Maw  on  her  first  vacation  in  a  life  of 
sixty  years.  Dear  old  Maw! 

Ninety  thousand  replicas  of  Maw  cause 
the  rest  of  us  to  eat  copiously  of  alkaline 
dust  and  to  shiver  each  time  we  approach 
a  turn  on  the  roads  of  Yellowstone  Park, 
which  were  laid  out  on  a  curling  iron. 
You  cannot  escape  seeing  Paw  and  Maw, 
and  Cynthy  in  her  pants,  and  Hattie  and 
Roweny  in  overalls  and  putties.  I  have 
seen  their  camp  fire  rising  on  every  re 
maining  spot  of  grass  on  all  that  busy 
fifty  miles.  I  have  photographed  Maw 
and  Cynthy  and  the  other  girls,  and  Cyn 
thy  has  photographed  me  because  I  looked 
funny.  Bless  them  all,  the  whole  ninety 
thousand  of  them — I  would  not  have 
missed  them  on  their  vacation  this  sum 
mer  for  all  the  world.  They  are,  I  sup 
pose,  what  we  call  the  new  people  of 


MAWS  VACATION 


America,  who  never  have  been  out  like 
this  before.  They've  been  at  home.  Maw 
has  been  getting  the  Sunday  dinner.  Paw 
has  been  plowing,  paying  the  taxes  which 
this  Government  has  spent  for  him.  But 
now  Paw  pays  income  tax  also ;  and  both 
he  and  Maw  construe  this  fact  to  mean 
that  they  can  at  last  read  their  title  clear 
to  a  rest,  and  a  car,  and  a  vacation.  So 
they  have  swung  out  from  the  lane  at  last, 
after  forty  years  of  work,  and  on  to  the 
roads  that  lead  to  the  transcontinental 
highway.  They  have  crossed  the  prairies 
and  come  up  into  the  foothills — the  price 
of  gas  increasing  day  by  day,  and  Paw 
kicking  but  paying  cash — and  so  they 
have  at  last  arrived  among  the  great  moun 
tains  of  which  Maw  has  dreamed  all  her 
long  life  of  cooking  and  washing  and  iron 
ing. 


Studies  in  Mountain  Pants 

I  SHALL  not  inquire  by  what  miracle  of 
grace  Paw  has  learned  to  find  his  way 

about  on  these  curling-iron  mountain 
roads.  I  am  content  to  eat  a  barrel  of  dust 
a  day  rather  than  miss  the  sight  of  Maw, 
placid  and  bespectacled,  on  the  front  seat 
of  the  flivver.  Without  her  the  mountain 
roads  would  never  be  the  same  for  me, 
and  my  own  vacation  would  be  spoiled. 
Frankly,  I  am  in  love  with  Maw;  and  as 
for  Cynthy  in  her  pants 

Times  has  changed.  Maw  also  wears 
pants  today.  She  says  that  they  are  con- 
venienter  when  she  sits  down  round  on 
the  grass.  Sometimes  her  pants  are  fast 
ened  round  the  ankles  with  large  and 
shiny  safety  pins,  apparently  saved  from 
the  time  when  Jimmy  was  a  baby.  Some 
times  they  hang  straight  down  au  naturel, 
and  sometimes  they  stop  at  the  knee — in 
which  case,  as  Maw's  au  naturel  is  dis- 


8 MAWS  VACATION 

posed  to  adipose — they  make  a  startling 
adjunct  to  the  mountain  scenery.  But, 
bless  her  heart,  Maw  doesn't  care!  She 
is  on  her  way  and  on  her  vacation,  the 
first  in  all  her  life.  There  rest  on  her  soul 
the  content  and  poise  which  her  own 
square  and  self-respecting  mind  tells  her 
are  due  her  after  forty  years  of  labor,  in 
cluding  the  Lord's  Days  thereof.  I  call 
Maw's  vacation  her  Lord's  Day.  It  ought 
to  be  held  a  sacred  thing  by  all  who  tour 
our  national  parks,  where  Maw  is  gregari 
ously  accumulated  in  these  days.  I  used 
to  own  this  park,  you  and  I  did.  It's 
Maw's  park  now.  Forty  years  of  hard 
work! 

Has  she  earned  a  vacation?  I'll  say  she 
has.  Is  she  taking  it?  I'll  say  she  is. 

Maw  has  company  in  the  park — not 
always  just  the  company  she  or  I  would 
select,  were  it  left  to  us.  Some  of  these  do 
not  go  out  by  motor  car.  Of  course  Abe 
Klinghammer,  of  the  Plasterers'  Union, 
Local  Number  Four,  being  rich,  goes  out 


MAW'S  VACATION 


by  rail  on  a  round  trip.  He  can  go 
to  the  tents  and  log  cottages  of  the  Camps 
Company.  He  does  not  kick  any  more 
than  Maw  kicks.  To  tell  the  truth,  in  spite 
of  the  front  he  throws,  Abe  is  a  little  bit 
scared  at  all  this  sudden  splendor  in  his 
life.  He  is  a  little  uneasy  about  how  to 
act,  how  to  seem  careless  about  it,  as 
though  he  had  been  used  to  it  all  his  life. 
Abe  takes  it  out  in  neckties.  Having 
bought  a  swell  one  of  four  colors  and  in 
serted  a  large  cameo  in  it,  he  loses  his 
nerve  and  begins  to  doubt  whether  he  is 
getting  by.  You  will  always  see  Abe 
looking  at  your  necktie. 

And  there  is  Benjamin  D.  O'Cleave  of 
New  York — with  a  flourish  under  it  on 
the  register.  He  and  his  wife  take  it  out 
in  diamonds.  You  would  never  see  one 
of  the  O'Cleave  family  at  a  roadside  camp 
fire  such  as  that  where  Maw  fries  the 
trout  and  Rowena  toasts  the  bread  on  a 
fork.  The  original  O'Cleave  came  over 
in  the  Mayflower,  as  1  am  informed — but, 


H) MAW'S  VACATION 

without  question  in  my  mind,  came  steer 
age.  You  will  find  Mr.  O'Cleave  in  the 
swellest  hotel,  in  the  highest-priced  room. 
He  is  first  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first 
in  the  dining  room. 

Mr.  O'Cleave  pays  a  plenty  a  head  for 
all  his  family,  for  rooms  with  bath  and 
meals.  The  hotel  company  would  gladly 
charge  him  more,  and  Mr.  O'Cleave  glad 
ly  would  pay  more.  He  confides  to  the 
hotel  clerk — who  is  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secre 
tary  back  East — that  he  should  not  care  if 
it  was  even  fifty  dollars  a  day,  he  could 
pay  it.  But,  if  so,  he  would  already  want 
for  his  money  more  service,  which  he 
waits  five  hours  and  not  enough  cars  to 
get  him  over  to  see  the  Giantess  Geyser 
play,  which  the  Giantess  maybe  didn't 
play  again  for  eight  days,  and  should  a 
business  man  and  taxpayer  wait  eight  days 
because  of  not  cars  enough  by  a  hotel, 
which  is  the  only  place  a  man  has  to  go 
with  his  family?  Is  it  reasonable? 


Maw  in  War  Paint 

THE  highly  specialized  hotel  clerk  ad 
mits  that  it  is  not  reasonable,  that 
nothing  is  reasonable,  that  he  has 
spoken  to  the  Giantess  a  dozen  times 
about  her  irregular  habits;  but  what  can 
he  do?  "I  would  gladly  charge  you  one 
hundred  dollars  a  day,  Mr.  O'Cleave,  if  I 
had  the  consent  of  the  Interior  Depart 
ment.  It  isn't  my  fault." 

I  wish  I  had  a  movie  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
hotel  clerk  when  he  is  off  duty  at  the  desk. 
I  wonder  if  his  faith  upholds  him  when  he 
recalls  the  threat  of  Benjamin  D.  O'Cleave 
to  go  to  Europe  next  year.  Ah,  well, 
even  if  he  does,  Maw  will  remain. 

I  know  that  next  year  I  shall  again  see 
Maw  leaning  against  a  big  pine,  as  she 
sits  upon  the  ground  drinking  real  hand 
made  coffee  of  her  own  from  a  tin  cup 
with  the  handle  cut  so  it  will  nest  down 
in  the  box.  Maw's  meals  do  not  cost  her 


]2 MAW'S  VACATION 

four  bits  a  throw,  because  they  brought 
things  along.  Paw  catches  a  trout  some 
times  on  the  cane  pole  that  hangs  along 
side  the  car;  not  always,  but  sometimes, 
he  catches  one.  And  Maw,  once  she  had 
conquered  the  notion  that  you  ought  to 
skin  a  trout  the  way  you  do  a  bullhead 
back  in  loway,  took  to  cooking  trout  nat 
urally;  and  her  trout,  with  pancakes  and 
sirup,  to  my  notion  beat  anything  the 
hotel  chef  in  the  best  hotel  can  do.  Maw 
does  not  worry  about  a  room  with  bath, 
though  sometimes  when  the  rain  comes 
through  the  old  wall  tent  she  gets  both. 
The  pink  and  green  war  paint  which  you 
sometimes  see  beneath  Maw's  specs  when 
you  meet  her  on  me  road  represents  only 
the  mark  of  the  bedquilts,  where  the  col 
ors  were  not  too  proud  to  run. 

Maw  finds  it  wonderful  in  these  moun 
tains.  I  know  she  does,  because  she  has 
never  yet  told  me  so.  Maw  throws  no 
fits.  But  many  a  time  I  have  seen  her  sit 
ting,  in  the  late  afternoon,  her  hands,  in 


MAWS  VACATION [3 

the  first  idleness  they  have  known  in  all 
her  life,  lying  in  her  ample  lap,  her  faded 
eyes  quietly  gazing  through  her  steel- 
bowed  far-lookers  at  the  vast  pictures 
across  some  valley  she  has  found.  It  is 
her  first  valley  of  dreams,  her  first  valley 
of  rest  and  peace  and  quiet.  The  lights 
on  these  hills  are  such  as  she  did  not  see 
in  loway,  or  even  in  Nebraska,  when  she 
went  there  once,  time  Mary's  baby  was 
born.  The  clouds  are  so  strange  to  Maw, 
their  upturned  edges  so  very  white  against 
the  black  body  of  their  over-color.  And 
the  rains  that  come,  with  hail — "but  here 
you  don't  need  worry,  for  there  are  no 
crops  for  the  hail  to  spoil.  And  sometimes 
in  the  afternoon,  never  during  the  splen 
dor  of  the  mellow  morning  such  as  Maw 
never  before  has  seen,  comes  the  lightning 
and  rips  the  counterpane  of  clouds  to  let 
the  sun  shine  through. 

I  know  Maw  loves  it  all,  because  she 
never  has  told  me  so.  She  is  very  shy 
about  her  new  world  in  this  new  day.  She 


MAWS  VACATION 


wouldn't  like  to  talk  about  it.  We  never 
do  like  to  talk  about  it,  once  we  really 
have  looked  out  across  our  valley  of 
dreams. 

You  can't  fail  to  like  Hattie  and  Row- 
ena  and  Cynthy.  Often  I  walk  with  Cyn- 
thy  and  her  Vassarrority  on  the  Angel  Ter 
race,  when  the  moon  is  up,  when  it  is  all 
white,  and  Cynthy  is  almost  the  only  angel 
left  there.  Such  a  moon  as  the  Interior 
Department  does  provide  for  the  summer 
here!  I  defy  any  Secretary  of  any  other 
Department  —  War,  Navy,  Commerce, 
Labor  or  anything  —  to  produce  any  such 
moon  as  this  at  six  dollars  and  fifty  cents 
a  day  with  bath;  or  four  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  a  day  with  two  towels;  or  four  bits 
a  day  at  Maw's  camp  on  the  Madison.  So 
though  I  know  Cynthy  would  prefer  the 
young  park  ranger  —  who  really  is  the  son 
of  a  leading  banker  in  Indianapolis  —  to 
explain  the  algae  and  the  Algys,  I  do  the 
best  I  can  at  my  age  of  life  with  Cynthy. 

Rowena,  the  younger,  seventeen  now, 


MAWS  VACATION 


who  wears  hers  with  spirals,  tells  me  that 
Cynthy  keeps  a  diary,  because  she  herself 
found  it  in  the  tool  box.  "And  once," 
says  Rowena  to  me,  "Cynthy,  after  com 
ing  into  camp  from  a  walk  through  the 
moonlit  pines,  wrote  in  her  diary:  'Aug 
ust  1  2,  1  1  p.  m.  Trout  for  supper.  Walked 
with  -  toward  the  Hymen  Terrace, 
just  beyond  Jupiter  Hill,  I  think  it  is  called. 
The  moon  wonderful  what  woman  is 
there  who  has  not  at  some  time  in  her  life 
longed  to  be  swept  off  her  feet  by  some 
Strong  Man!'  ' 

I  copy  this  as  Rowena  did,  punctuation 
and  all.  Rowena  has  not  yet  gone  to  Vas- 
sar. 

Cynthy  is  the  one  who  thinks  the  fam 
ily  ought  to  have  a  six-cylinder  car  next 
year,  with  seats  that  lie  back,  and  air  mat 
tresses.  Maw  does  not  agree  with  her, 
and  says  that  four  cylinders  are  plenty 
hard  enough  for  Paw  to  keep  clean.  By 
what  marvel  Cynthy  is  always  so  stun 
ning;  and  Hattie  so  nurselike  in  denim  and 


H> MAWS  VACATION 

white ;  and  Rowena  always  so  neat  in  hers 
with  spirals,  which  she  bought  ready  made 
at  the  store  for  seven  dollars  and  fifty-two 
cents — I  cannot  say;  but  when  I  see  these 
marvels  I  renew  my  faith  in  my  country 
and  its  people,  even  though  I  do  wish  that 
Paw  would  pause  at  some  geyser  and  have 
a  Sunday  shave.  He  says  he  forgot  his 
razor  and  left  it  home. 


In  the  Grip  of  the  Law 

SPEAKING  of  room  with  bath,  Maw 
solved  the  ablutionary  problem  for 
herself  the  other  day  at  Old  Faithful 
Ranger  Station.      The  young  men  who 
make  up  the  ranger  force  there  have  built 
a   simple   shanty   over   the   river's   brim, 
which  they  use  as  their  own  bathhouse. 
As   there  is   no   sentinel   stationed  there 
Maw  thought  it  was  public  like   every 
thing  else.     She  told  me  about  it  later. 

"I  went  in,"  said  she,  "and  seen  what 
it  was.  There  was  a  long  tub  and  a  tin 
pail.  There  was  a  trapdoor  in  the  floor 
that  was  right  over  the  river.  1  reached 
down  and  drew  up  a  pail  of  water,  and  it 
was  right  cold.  Then  I  seen  a  turn  fau 
cet,  end  of  a  pipe  that  stuck  out  over  the 
tub.  It  brought  in  some  right  hot  water 
that  come  up  within  six  feet  of  the  door. 
It  didn't  take  me  long  to  figure  that  this 
was  the  hot-water  faucet.  So  there  was 


MAWS  VACATION 


hot  and  cold  water  both  right  on  the  spot, 
and  I  reckon  there  ain't  no  such  natural 
washtub  as  that  in  all  loway.  I  got  me  a 
wash  that  will  last  me  a  long  while.  There 
wasn't  no  towels,  and  so  I  took  my  skirt. 
Now,  Cynthy  -  " 

But  Cynthy  was  writing  notes  in  her 
diary.  All  college  girls  write  notes  in 
diaries,  and  sometimes  they  take  to  free 
verse.  Of  course  writing  in  a  diary  is 
only  a  form  of  egotism,  precisely  like  writ 
ing  on  a  geyser  formation.  They  both 
ought  to  be  illegal,  and  one  is.  Maw 
knows  all  about  that.  Sometimes,  even 
now,  she  will  tell  me  how  she  came  to  be 
fined  by  the  United  States  commissioner 
at  Mammoth  Hot  Springs. 

You  see,  the  geysers  rattled  Maw,  there 
being  so  many  and  she  loving  them  all 
so  much.  One  day  when  they  were 
camped  near  the  Upper  Basin,  Maw  was 
looking  down  in  the  cone  of  Old  Faithful, 
just  after  that  Paderewski  of  the  park  had 
ceased  playing.  She  told  me  she  wanted 


MAWS  VACATION [9 

to  see  where  all  the  suds  came  from.  But 
all  at  once  she  saw  beneath  her  feet  a 
white,  shiny  expanse  of  something  that 
looked  like  chalk.  At  a  sudden  impulse 
she  drew  a  hatpin  from  her  hair  and  knelt 
down  on  the  geyser  cone — not  reflecting 
how  long  and  slow  had  been  its  growth. 

For  the  first  time  a  feeling  of  identity 
came  to  Maw.  She  never  had  been  any 
body  all  her  life,  even  to  herself,  before 
this  moment  on  her  vacation.  But  now 
she  had  seen  the  mountains  and  the  sky, 
and  had  oriented  herself  as  one  of  the  own 
ers  of  this  park.  So  Maw,  dear,  old,  hap 
py,  innocent  Maw,  knelt  down  with  her 
hatpin  and  wrote:  Margaret  D.  Hana- 
ford,  Glasgow,  Iowa. 

She  was  looking  at  her  handiwork  and 
allowing  she  could  have  done  it  better, 
when  she  felt  a  touch  on  her  shoulder,  and 
looked  up  into  the  stern  young  face,  the 
narrow  blond  mustache,  of  the  ranger 
from  Indianapolis.  The  ranger  was  in  the 
Engineers  of  the  A.  E.  F.  When  Maw 


20 MAWS  VACATION 

saw  him  she  was  frightened,  she  didn't 
know  why. 

"Madam,"  said  the  ranger,  "are  you 
Margaret  D.  Hanaford?" 

"That's  me,"  answered  Maw;  "I  don't 
deny  it." 

"Did  you  write  that  on  the  formation?" 

Maw  could  not  tell  a  lie  any  more  than 
George  Washington  when  caught,  so  she 
confessed  on  the  spot. 

"Then  you  are  under  arrest !  Don't  you 
know  it's  against  the  regulations  to  deface 
any  natural  object  in  the  park?  I'll  have 
to  telephone  in  the  number  of  your  car. 
You  must  see  the  commissioner  before 
you  leave  the  park." 

"Me  arrested?"  exclaimed  Maw  in  sud 
den  consternation.  "What'll  that  man  do 
to  me?" 

"He'll  fine  you  ten  dollars  and  costs.  If 
you  had  written  it  a  little  bit  larger  it 
would  have  been  twenty-five  dollars  and 
costs.  Now  get  down  and  rub  it  out  be- 


MAWS  VACATION 2\_ 

fore  it  sets,  and  do  it  quick,  before  the 
geyser  plays  again." 

And  so  Maw  got  down  on  her  knees 
and  rubbed  out  her  first  feeling  of  identity. 
And  the  commissioner  fined  her  ten  dol 
lars  and  costs  in  due  time — for  Maw  was 
honest  as  the  day  and  didn't  try  to  evade 
the  punishment  that  she  thought  was  hers. 

"I  ought  to  have  knew  better,"  she  said 
"me,  a  woman  of  my  years.  I  don't 
begretch  the  money,  and  I  think  the  young 
man  was  right,  and  so  was  the  judge,  and 
I'll  never  do  it  again.  The  commissioner 
said  that  I  looked  like  a  woman  of  sense. 
I  always  did  have  sense  before.  I  think  it 
must  be  these  mountains,  or  the  moon,  or 
something.  I  never  felt  that  way  before." 

It  was  this  young  man  who  walked 
down  to  Maw's  camp  to  take  her  number. 
It  was  there  that  he  met  Cynthy,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  she  took  his  number 
at  the  time.  Later  on  I  often  saw  them 
walking  together,  past  the  great  log  hotel 
with  its  jazz  architecture,  and  beyond  the 


22 MAWS  VACATION 

fringe  of  pine  that  separates  the  camp  trip 
pers  from  the  O'Cleaves,  who  live  in  the 
hotels.  The  young  ranger  was  contrite 
about  arresting  Maw,  but  that  latter  was 
the  first  to  exonerate  him. 

"You  only  done  right,"  said  she.  "I 
done  what  I  knew  was  wrong.  Now, 
Hattie,  and  you,  Roweny,  don't  you  let 
this  spoil  your  trip  none  at  all.  It's  once 
your  Maw  has  allowed  herself  the  privi 
lege  of  being  an  old  fool,  the  first  time  in 
her  life.  I  dunno  but  it  was  worth  ten 
dollars,  at  that." 

And  so  I  suppose  we  should  let  Cynthy 
and  the  young  ranger  go  out  into  the 
moonshine  to  learn  how  the  algae  grow, 
of  how  many  different  colors.  Consider 
the  algae  of  the  geysers,  how  they  grow. 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  had  nothing  on 
the  algae;  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba  noth 
ing  on  Cynthy. 

Sometimes,  even  yet,  Maw  and  I  talk 
about  the  time  she  was  fined  ten  dollars 
for  writing  her  name.  "It  might  have 


-and  The  Queen  of  Sheba  had  nothing  on  Cynthy." 
—p.  22. 


MAWS  VACATION 


been  worse,"  said  she  to  me.  "When  we 
was  coming  through  some  place  a  ways 
back  we  heard  about  a  man  there  that  was 
sentenced  to  be  hung  after  he  had  been 
tried  several  times.  His  friends  done  what 
they  could  with  the  governor,  but  it  didn't 
come  to  nothing.  So  after  a  while  his  law 
yer  come  in  the  jail,  and  he  says:  'Bill, 
I  can't  do  nothing  more  for  you.  On  next 
Monday  morning  at  six  o'clock  you've  got 
to  be  hung  by  the  neck  until  you're  dead, 
and  may  God  have  mercy  on  your  soul.' 
'Well,  all  I  can  say,'  says  Bill,  'that's  a  fine 
way  to  begin  the  week,  ain't  it  now?'  ' 

The  time  she  wrote  her  name  upon  the 
geyser  will  always  remain  the  great  event 
in  Maw's  life.  When  she  makes  down 
her  bedquilt  bed  in  the  pine  woods,  from 
which  she  can  hear  the  music  of  the  hotel 
orchestra  when  the  nocturnal  dance  has 
begun,  and  can  see  the  searchlight  play 
ing  on  the  towering  pillar  of  Old  Faithful, 
once  more  in  its  twenty-four  daily  essays 
from  the  bowels  of  the  mysterious  earth 


24 MAWS  VACATION 

shooting  up  into  the  mysterious  blackness 
of  the  night  sky,  Maw  on  her  hands  and 
knees  says  to  herself:  "I'm  glad  my  name 
ain't  on  that  thing.  It  was  was  too  little 
to  go  with  that,  even  if  for  a  minute  I  felt 
like  somebody." 

Speaking  of  the  midnight  and  the  music, 
sometimes  I  go  over  to  the  hotel  to  tread 
a  measure  with  Stella  O'Cleave,  able  for 
a  moment  to  forget  Stella's  father  in  the 
opulent  beauty  of  Stella  herself.  Her 
mother  is  what  is  called  a  fine  figure  of  a 
woman,  and  so  will  Stella  be  some  day. 
Sometimes,  when  we  have  left  the  dance 
floor  to  sit  along  the  rail  where  the  yellow 
cars  will  line  up  next  morning  to  sweep 
Stella  away  within  a  day  after  she  and  her 
putties  have  come  into  my  young  life,  I 
may  say  that  I  find  Stella  O'Cleave  not 
difficult  to  look  upon.  I  always  feel  a 
sense  of  Oriental  luxury,  as  though  I  had 
bought  a  new  rug,  when  Stella  turns  on 
me  the  slumberous  midnight  of  her  eyes. 
I  am  enamored  of  the  piled  black  shadows 


MAWS  VACATION 25 

of  Stella's  hair,  even  as  displayed  in  the 
somewhat  extreme  cootie  garages  which, 
in  the  vernacular  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  indicate 
the  presence  of  her  ears.  I  admire  the 
long  sure  lines  which  her  evidently  expen 
sive  New  York  tailor  has  given  to  hers; 
they  are  among  the  best  I  have  seen  in  the 
park.  I  could  wish  that  the  heels  on  Stel 
la's  French  shoes  were  less  than  five  in 
ches  high.  I  could  wish  that  she  did  not 
wrap  her  putties,  one  from  the  inside  out, 
and  the  other  from  the  outside  in.  But 
these  are  details.  The  splendor  of  her 
eyes,  the  ripe  redness  of  her  lips,  the  soft 
ness  of  her  voice,  combined,  have  dis 
posed  me  to  forgive  her  all. 

"There  are  times,"  sighed  Stella  that 
evening,  beneath  the  moon,  as  we  sat 
against  the  log  rail  and  listened  to  the 
jazz,  "out  here  in  these  mountains,  when 
I  feel  as  though  I  were  a  wild  creature,  like 
these  others." 

"My  dear,"  said  I,  "I  can  believe  you. 
Your  putties  do  look  wild." 


26 MAW'S  VACATION 

"Listen,"  said  she  to  me.  "You  do  not 
get  me." 

The  sob  of  the  saxophone  came  through 
the  window  near  by,  the  froufrou  of  the 
dancers  made  a  soft  susurration  faintly 
audible.  I  looked  into  Stella's  dark  eyes, 
at  her  clouded  brow. 

"Come  again,  loved  one,"  said  I  to  her. 

"What  I  mean  to  say,"  she  resumed,  "is 
that  there  are  times  when  I  feel  as  though 
I  did  not  care  what  I  did  or  what  became 
of  me  out  here." 

My  hand  fell  upon  her  slender  fingers 
as  they  lay  twitching  in  the  twilight. 

"Stella,"  I  exclaimed,  "lit-tel  one,  if 
that  is  the  way  you  really  feel — or  the  way 
really  you  feel — or  really  the  way  you  feel 
— why  don't  you  go  down  to  Jackson's 
Hole  and  try  a  congressional  lunch?" 


Enough  for  Five  More 

THE  spruce  trees  rustled  amid  their 
umbrageous  boughs.  The  sob  of  the 
saxophone  still  came  through   the 
window.    I  saw  Stella  tremble  through  all 
her  tall  young  body.    A  tear  fell  upon  the 
floor  and  rebounded  against  one  of  the 
rustic  posts. 

"No,  No!"  said  she  in  sudden  contri 
tion,  burying  her  face  in  both  her  shapely 
hands.  "Say  anything  but  that!  I  did 
not  mean  me  hasty  words.  My  uncle  is 
a  congressman,  and  he  has  told  me  all." 

A  silence  fell  between  us.  The  sob  of 
the  saxophone,  still  doing  jazz,  came 
through  the  window.  Once  more  I  re 
called  the  classic  story — no  doubt  you 
know  it  well.  A  musician  one  evening 
passed  a  hat  among  the  dancers,  after  a 
number  had  been  concluded. 

"Please,  sir,"  said  he  to  each,  "would 
you  give  fifty  cents  to  bury  a  saxophone 


28 MAWS  VACATION 

player?"  Then  out  spoke  one  jovial 
guest,  to  the  clink  of  his  accompanying 
coin:  "Here's  three  dollars,  friend.  Bury 
six  saxophone  players!" 

Absent-mindedly  recalling  this  story  I 
reached  out  my  hand  with  a  five-dollar  bill 
in  it,  as  I  saw  a  quiet-looking  gentleman 
passing  by  with  a  hat  in  his  hand. 

"Bury  ten  saxophone  players,"  I  hissed 
through  my  set  lips.  He  turned  to  me 
mildly. 

"Excuse  me  sir,"  said  he,  "I  am  not  an 
undertaker.  I  am  only  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior." 

Of  course  one  will  make  mistakes. 
Still,  under  our  form  of  government  me- 
thinks  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  really 
is  responsible  for  the  existence  of  saxo 
phone  players  within  the  limits  of  the 
park. 

In  common  with  Maw  and  others,  I 
realized  that  in  many  ways  the  park  might 
be  better.  It  might  be  far  more  practicably 
administered.  This  morning  I  met  a  pro- 


MAWS  VACATION 29 

cession  of  fifty  women,  all  in  overalls,  who 
all  looked  precisely  alike.  Maw  was  at 
their  head. 

"We're  going  over  to  the  store  to  get  a 
loaf  of  bread,"  said  she,  "and  a  picture  of 
Old  Faithful  Geyser  and  a  burnt-leather 
pillow.  And  lookit  here,  mister,  here  is  a 
book  I  bought  for  Roweny  to  read.  I  can 
stand  for  most  of  it.  But  here  it  says  that 
the  geysers  is  run  by  hot  water,  and  when 
they  freeze  up  in  the  winter  the  men  that 
live  in  the  park  cut  the  ice  and  use  it  for 
foot  warmers,  it's  so  hot.  That  might  be 
true,  and  then  again  it  might  not.  If  it 
ain't,  why  should  they  try  to  fool  the  peo 
ple?" 

I  referred  Maw  to  the  superintendent  of 
the  park,  with  the  explanation  that  he  has 
full  control  over  all  the  natural  objects, 
and  that  if  any  geyser  proves  guilty  of  ob 
noxious  conduct  he  is  empowered  to  eject 
it. 

"I  dunno  but  what  that  would  be  the 
best  way  to  do,"  said  she.  "If  these  places 


30 MAWS  VACATION 

ain't  fit  to  walk  on,  summer  or  winter 
neither  one,  something  ought  to  be  done 
about  it. 

"But  lookit  here,"  she  went  on,  "if  you 
want  to  see  people  busy,  come  down  to 
our  camp,  some  sundown.  There  ain't 
that  many  mosquitoes  in  all  loway,  and 
they  call  this  place  a  national  playground. 
It  ain't  no  such  place.  And  yet,  when  I 
go  to  the  postoffice,  store,  or  the  superin 
tendent's  office,  or  the  head  clerk's  house, 
or  the  curio  store  to  get  some  mosquito 
dope  to  rub  on  myself,  they  ain't  got  no 
mosquito  dope;  but  for  four  dollars  you 
can  buy  a  lovely  leather  pillow  with 
'Mother'  on  it.  What  do  I  want  with  a 
leather  pillow  with  'Mother*  on  it  when 
mosquitoes  are  biting;  or  a  picture  of  an 
Indian  on  one  side  of  a  sheepskin;  or  bead 
bags ;  or  moccasins  that  they  say  are  made 
by  the  Indians?  What  I  want  is  mosquito 
dope  and  bread;  something  practical. 
When  you  got  a  bite  on  your  elbow  you 
don't  care  a  durn  about  a  card  showing  a 


MAWS  VACATION 


picture  of  Artist  Point,  and  I  am  as  good 
a  Presbyterian  as  anybody.  I  say  them 
stores  ain't  practical." 

Quite  often  when  I  stroll  down  to  inter 
view  Maw  and  her  family  at  their  camp  I 
am  able  to  obtain  free  expression  of 
opinion  on  current  matters.  The  other 
evening  Paw  was  hammering  at  some 
thing  which  at  first  looked  like  a  piece  of 
stone. 

"It  breaks  right  easy,"  said  he.  "I  got 
this  piece  off  the  Angel  Cake  Terrace. 
Having  so  many  in  the  car  I  have  to  cut 
down  the  weight.  But  what  I  and  Maw 
want,"  he  said,  "is  a  pair  of  them  elk 
horns.  If  I  can  get  a  good  pair  I  allow  to 
paint  them  red  and  black,  with  gold  round 
the  lower  ends.  Maw  and  me  think  they'd 
look  right  good  in  the  parlor." 


Old  Stanley's  Story 

THEY  have  visitors  now  and  then, 
Paw  and  Maw,  at  their  camp.     The 
local  old-timers   seem   to   gravitate 
toward  them.     One  evening  I  found  old 
man  Stanley  sitting  on  a  log  and  talking 
to  them  in  reminiscent  mood  about  him 
self,  his  deeds  and  his  dentition. 

"It  looks  to  me  like  a  fellow  could  work 
hard  enough  in  three  months  to  last  him 
the  hull  year,"  said  old  man  Stanley. 
"Just  last  week  the  camp  folks  wanted  me 
to  go  to  work  for  them.  I  told  them  I 
wouldn't  work  for  nobody  but  the  Gover'- 
ment,  and  only  three  months  in  the  year 
at  that.  But  they  persuaded  me  to  go  to 
work  for  night  watchman.  I  said  all  right, 
only  I  had  to  go  down  to  Gardiner  and  get 
my  teeth  fixed.  They  asked  me  why  1 
didn't  go  to  Livingston.  I  told  them  some 
of  my  friends  down  to  Gardiner  had  been 
pulling  my  teeth  for  me  for  six  or  eight 


MAWS  VACATION 33 

years,  them  having  a  good  pair  of  forceps. 
Of  course  they  break  some,  but  take  it 
one  way  with  the  other,  them  uppers  of 
mine  get  along  right  well.  So  I  goes  down 
to  them  friends  last  week,  and  had  some 
more  teeth  pulled.  They  mostly  get  near 
ly  all  the  pieces  out.  I've  got  four  teeth 
left  now,  and  that's  enough  for  anybody. 
I  sort  of  wish  they'd  track  a  little  better; 
but  still,  four  teeth  is  enough  for  any  rea 
sonable  man." 

Maw  spoke  to  me  in  an  aside :  "I  wisht 
I  could  believe  everything  I  see  and  hear," 
said  she,  sotto  voce.  "Now,  here,  this 
man  and  old  Tom  Newcomb,  they  both 
tell  me  that  them  and  old  John  Yancey, 
which  is  dead  now,  was  here  so  long  ago 
they  saw  the  water  turned  into  Yellow 
stone  River.  Of  course  it  may  be  true; 
but  then  again,  sometimes  I  doubt  the 
things  I  hear." 

"The  safest  thing  you  could  do  is  to 
doubt  them  geysers,"  interrupted  her  hus 
band,  who  overhead  her.  "I  was  walking 


34 MAW'S  VACATION 

round  on  them  just  the  other  day,  right 
where  signs  said  'Dangerous.'  It  didn't 
seem  to  me  there  was  no  danger  at  all,  for 
nothing  was  happening.  But  one  of  them 
rangers  come  up  to  me  and  asked  if  I 
didn't  see  the  sign.  'That's  all  right, 
brother,'  says  I.  'I've  tried  this  place  and 
it's  all  right.'  And  right  then  she  went 
off." 

"And  you  should  have  seen  Paw  come 
down  off  from  there,"  commented  his 
spouse.  "I  didn't  know  he  could  run  that 
fast,  his  time  of  life." 

"If  they  let  me  have  my  gun,"  said 
Paw,  uncrossing  one  leg  from  the  other, 
"I  could  mighty  soon  get  me  a  pair  of  elk 
horns  for  myself.  But  what  can  a  fellow 
do  when  they  tie  his  gun  up,  time  he  comes 
in  the  park?" 

"You  ain't  maybe  noticed  that  hole  in 
the  back  end  of  our  car,"  explained  Maw 
to  me,  pointing  to  an  aperture  in  the  cur 
tain  which  looked  as  though  a  cat  had 
been  thrown  through  it  with  claws  ex 
tended.  "Tell  him  about  it  Paw." 


Spontaneous  Eruption 

WELL,  I  dunno  as  it's  much  to 
tell,"  said  that  gentleman,  some 
what  crestfallen.  "This  here 
old  musket  of  mine  is  the  hardest  shooting 
gun  in  our  country.  I've  kilt  me  a  goose 
with  it  many  a  time,  at  a  hundred  yards. 
She's  a  Harper's  Ferry  musket  that  done 
good  service  in  the  Civil  War.  She's  been 
hanging  in  my  room,  loaded,  for  three  or 
four  years,  I  reckon,  and  when  I  told  the 
ranger  man,  coming  in,  that  she  was 
loaded  he  says :  'You  can't  take  no  loaded 
gun  through  the  park.  We'll  have  to 
shoot  her  off  before  you  can  go  in  the 
park.'  So  we  took  old  Suse  round  behind 
the  house,  and  snaps  six  or  eight  caps  on 
her,  but  she  didn't  go  off.  Finally  the 
ranger  allowed  that  that  gun  was  perfectly 
safe,  and  they  let  me  bring  her  on  in,  of 
course,  having  wired  up  the  working  end. 
"I  think  old  Suse  must  have  got  some 


36 MAWS  VACATION 

sort  of  examples  from  these  geysers.  I 
just  throwed  her  in  back  of  the  car,  on 
top  of  the  bed  clothes,  pointing  back  be 
hind  where  the  girls  was  setting.  All  at 
once,  several  hours  later,  without  no  warn 
ing,  she  just  erupted.  There's  something 
eruptious  in  the  air  up  here  I  guess." 

"And  they  do  the  funniest  things," 
nodded  Maw.  "I  was  saying  I  thought 
this  park  wasn't  practical,  but  some  ways 
I  believe  it  is.  For  instance,  they  told  me 
about  how  when  they  was  making  the 
new  road  from  the  Lake  Hotel  over  to  the 
Canyon  the  engineer  run  the  line  in  the 
winter  time,  and  it  run  right  over  on  top 
a  grave,  where  a  man  was  buried.  There 
was  a  headstone  there,  but  the  snow  was 
so  deep  the  engineer  didn't  see  it.  Come 
spring,  the  road  crew  graded  the  road  right 
through,  grave  and  all.  When  the  super 
intendent  heard  of  that  he  come  down  and 
complained  about  it. 

'  'Now/   says  he,    *y°u've   gone  built 
that  expensive  road  right  over  that  feller, 


MAWS  VACATION 37 

and  we've  got  to  take  him  up  and  move 
him.'  There  was  an  Irish  foreman  that 
had  run  the  road  crew,  and  he  reasons 
thoughtful  for  a  while,  and  then  he  says 
to  the  superintendent,  says  he:  'Why 
can't  we  just  move  the  headstone  and 
leave  him  where  he's  at?'  So  they  done 
that,  and  everybody  is  perfectly  contented, 
his  widow  and  all.  What  I  don't  see  is 
why  don't  the  yellow  cars  stop  there  and 
point  out  that  for  a  point  of  interest?  But 
they  don't.  I  believe  I'll  speak  to  the  su 
perintendent  about  that." 

As  to  the  latter  personage  mentioned 
by  my  friends,  one  must  search  far  to  find 
a  more  long-suffering  man.  As  a  boy  the 
superintendent  was  wild,  and  during  a 
moment  of  unrestraint  he  slew  his  Sab 
bath-school  teacher  while  yet  a  youth. 
The  judge,  in  sentencing  him,  said  that 
hanging  would  not  be  severe  enough,  so 
he  condemned  him  to  a  life  as  superintend 
ent  of  a  national  park — a  sentence  barely 
constitutional. 


38 MAWS  VACATION 

The  park  superintendent  is  a  study  in 
natural  history.  During  the  open  season 
on  superintendents,  some  three  months  in 
duration,  he  does  not  sleep  at  all.  For  one 
month  after  the  first  snowfall  he  digs  a 
hole  beneath  a  rock,  somewhere  above 
timberline,  and  falls  into  a  torpor,  using 
no  food  for  thirty  days.  Then  he  goes  to 
Washington  to  meet  the  Director  of  Parks, 
after  which  he  gets  no  more  sleep  until 
next  fall.  It  is  this  perpetual  insomnia 
which  gives  a  park  superintendent  his 
haunted  look.  He  knows  he  ought  not  to 
have  killed  his  teacher,  so  he  suffers  in  si 
lence. 

When  the  superintendent  comes  down 
to  his  office  in  the  morning  Maw  is  sitting 
on  the  front  steps,  sixty  thousand  of  her. 
She  has  not  got  that  letter  with  the  money 
in  it  yet ;  and  it's  such  things  as  that  which 
keeps  people  away  from  the  parks.  And 
what  has  become  of  her  dog?  He  was 
right  in  the  car  last  night  and  he  never 
harmed  nobody  in  his  life  and  wouldn't 


MAWS  VACATION 39 

bite  nobody's  bears  if  left  alone.  And 
what  can  folks  do  when  it  rains  this  way 
and  the  roads  so  slippy?  And  about  that 
man  on  the  truck  that  sassed  us  the  other 
day?  And  about  the  price  of  gas — how 
can  folks  afford  it  even  if  they  only  need 
two  gallons  to  get  to  the  railroad?  And 
if  I  couldn't  make  better  soup  than  they 
serve  at  the  camps  I'd  resign  from  the 
church.  And  how  far  is  it  to  Morris  Gey 
ser  Basin  and  why  do  they  call  it  a  basin 
and  who  was  Mr.  Norris  and  do  they  name 
all  the  things  after  people  and  why  not 
name  something  after  Congressman  Smith 
or  the  editor  of  some  Montana  paper  and 
what's  the  reason  people  have  to  pay  to 
ride  in  the  parks  anyways  and  why  can't 
we  bottle  Apollinaris  Spring  and  would 
some  salts  help  the  Iron  Spring  and  what 
makes  the  pelican's  mouth  so  funny  that 
way  and  do  they  eat  fish  and  is  there  any 
swans  on  Swan  Lake  Flats  and  which  way 
is  the  garage  and  is  there  church  on  Sun 
days  and  who  preaches  and  why  don't  they 


40 MAWS  VACATION 

have  a  Presbyterian  and  is  that  map  up  to 
date  and  are  you  a  married  man  and  how 
many  people  does  it  take  to  run  the  park 
and  how  much  do  the  hotels  make  and 
why  is  the  owner  of  the  camps  always  in 
such  a  hurry  to  get  away  when  you  want 
to  talk  with  him  and  who  is  the  man  who 
drives  the  sprinkler  wagon  with  specs  and 
can  you  get  pictures  cheaper  if  you  take 
say  a  dozen  and  why  can't  everybody  sell 
pictures  and  run  hotels — we  could  take 
them  right  with  our  Kapoks  anyways — 
and  is  there  a  place  where  you  can  get 
some  writing  paper  and  an  envelope  and 
do  you  write  all  your  own  letters  yourself 
but  of  course  how  could  a  stenographer 
stand  the  altitude?  Why,  I  get  out  of 
breath  sometimes. 


His  Busy  Day 

I  THINK  Maw,  sixty  thousand  of  her, 
does  sometimes  get  out  of  breath,  but 

not  often  and  not  for  long.  The  super 
intendent,  contrite  because  of  his  past,  is 
patient  when  he  replies. 

"Dear  madam,"  he  begins,  the  tips  of 
his  fingers  together  as  he  sits  back  in  his 
chair,  "your  inquiry  regarding  this  na 
tional  park  is  noted,  and  in  reply  I  beg  to 
state  that  I  will  answer  all  your  questions 
after  I  have  told  the  rangers  where  to  let 
the  hotels  cut  wood  and  where  to  run  their 
milk  herd  and  how  to  feed  the  hay  crews 
and  where  to  send  the  road  crews  and 
where  to  have  the  gravel  crews  sleep  and 
where  to  get  four  more  good  trucks  and 
two  more  garage  men  and  a  steno  and  a 
new  man  on  the  files  and  look  after  the 
Appropriations  Committee  and  write  my 
annual  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  In 
terior  and  my  weekly  report  to  the  Di- 


42 MAWS  VACATION 

rector  of  the  Parks  and  my  daily  report 
for  the  records  and  my  personal  corres 
pondence  and  see  where  the  automobile 
blanks  all  have  gone  and  get  the  daily  total 
of  visitors  classified  and  find  a  new  site  for 
a  camp  and  lay  out  twelve  miles  of  new 
road  and  have  the  garbage  moved  and  get 
the  elk  counted  again  and  the  antelope 
estimated  and  stop  the  sale  of  elk  teeth 
and  investigate  the  reasons  why  the  bears 
don't  come  in  and  look  at  a  sick  lady  at 
the  Fountain  and  wire  the  Shriners  that  I 
will  meet  them  at  the  train  and  write  Con 
gressman  Jones  that  his  trip  is  all  arranged 
for  and  pick  out  a  camp  site  for  the  di 
rector's  Chicago  friends  and  make  my 
daily  drive  of  five  hundred  miles  round 
the  park  to  see  if  they  haven't  carried  off 
the  mountains  and  tell  the  United  States 
commissioner  to  soak  that  party  who 
wrote  six  names  on  the  Castle  Geyser  and 
get  in  oats  for  the  road  teams  and  take  up 
the  topographic  maps  with  the  U.  S.  en 
gineers  and  send  some  photos  to  twelve 


MAWS  VACATION 43 

magazines  and  arrange  for  the  last  movie 
man  to  photograph  the  bears  and  see  about 
some  colored  prints  of  Old  Faithful  and 
have  the  bridal  chambers  of  the  hotel  ren 
ovated  for  the  party  of  New  York  editors 
and  get  a  new  collar  for  my  wife's  dog, 
and  explain  why  there  are  so  many  mos 
quitoes  this  year  even  under  a  Republi 
can  Administration — and  a  lot  more  things 
that  are  on  the  daily  tickler  pad.  Then  I 
have  to  keep  my  personal  books  and  write 
my  longhand  letters  until  after  midnight 
and  read  up  some  more  of  the  geology  of 
the  park  and  the  times  of  intermission  for 
the  geysers  and  the  altitudes  of  all  the 
peaks  and  learn  the  personal  names  of  all 
the  geysers  and  woodchucks  and " 

"That  man  wasn't  right  polite  to  me," 
said  Maw  in  commenting  upon  some  of 
this.  "He  told  me  he  was  busy.  I'd  like 
to  know  what  he's  got  to  do,  just  setting 
round." 

Myself,  I  sometimes  think  the  punish 
ment  of  the  superintendent  is  almost  too 


44 MAWS  VACATION 

severe.  He  is  obliged,  for  instance,  to 
know  everything  in  the  world  that  every 
one  else  in  the  world  does  not  know.  He 
has  pictures  and  exact  measurements  of 
all  the  game  animals  in  the  park,  all  the 
flowers,  knows  all  the  colors  of  the  Grand 
Canyon  and  the  location  of  every  sprink 
ling  hose  in  fifty  square  miles.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  ask  him  any  questions 
that  he  cannot  answer — except  perhaps 
my  favorite  question:  "Why  do  they 
have  this  curio  junk  in  all  the  park  stores 
— moccasins,  leather  Indian  heads,  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing?"  He  sobbed  when  I 
asked  him  that,  but  I  thought  I  could  hear 
some  muttered  word  about  there  being  a 
popular  demand.  As  for  me,  I  hold  with 
Maw  that,  if  a  person  is  being  bitten  on 
the  elbow,  better  a  bottle  of  marmalade, 
a  loaf  of  bread  or  a  bottle  of  mosquito 
dope  than  a  pair  of  beef-hide  moccasins 
with  puckered  toes.  In  my  belief  a  few 
paintings  by  Mr.  Thomas  Moran  at  a  cost 
of  fifteen  thousand  or  twenty  thousand 


MAWS  VACATION 45 

dollars,  or  sets  of  the  works  of  some  of  our 
more  popular  authors,  with  flexible  backs, 
would  be  far  more  appropriate  in  the  curio 
stores. 

Maw  is  of  the  opinion  that  most  of  the 
merchants,  storekeepers  and  venders  of 
commodities  west  of  the  Mississippi  River 
are  robbers.  "Not  that  I  mean  real  rob 
bers  like  used  to  hold  up  the  stagecoaches 
here  in  the  park,"  she  explained.  "They 
don't  do  that  no  more  since  the  cars  has 
come — I  suppose  because  they  go  so  fast 
that  it  ain't  convenient  for  robbers  no 
more.  But  in  the  old  times,  they  tell  me, 
when  they  run  stagecoaches  in  here,  and 
didn't  have  no  railroad  in  on  the  west  side, 
there  used  to  be  a  regular  business  of  hold 
ing  up  the  stagecoaches  right  over  where 
old  man  Dwelley  used  to  have  his  eating 
house  for  lunch.  There's  a  clubhouse 
there  now,  instead  of  his  old  eating  house, 
they  say.  I  heard  that  when  they  wanted 
to  buy  old  man  Dwelley  out  for  a  club  and 
asked  him  how  much  he  wanted,  he 


46 MAWS  VACATION 

thought  a  while,  and  then  did  some  count 
ing,  and  then  allowed  that  about  twelve 
thousand  dollars  would  be  about  right. 
The  man  that  was  buying  the  place,  he 
set  down  and  writ  a  check  right  then  for 
twelve  thousand  dollars.  But  old  man 
Dwelley  didn't  take  it.  'I  dunno  what  that 
thing  is,'  says  he.  'When  I  say  twelve 
thousand  dollars  I  mean  twelve  thousand 
dollars  in  real  money.'  ' 


When  Bozeman  Was  Riled 

THEY  told  him  he  had  for  to 
wait  a  few  days  and  they  went 
over  to  Livingston  and  got 
twelve  thousand  dollars  in  five-dollar  bills, 
and  brung  it  to  Dwelley,  and  told  him 
to  count  it.  He  counted  a  little  of  it,  and 
then  said  it  was  all  right;  he'd  take  their 
word  for  it  that  there  was  twelve  thousand 
dollars  there.  So  then  he  put  it  in  a  sack 
where  he  had  some  beaver  hides.  They 
told  me  he  sent  it  all  by  express  to  a  fur 
buyer  in  Salt  Lake  after  a  while,  and  told 
him  to  put  it  in  a  bank.  He  had  one  thou 
sand  five  hundred  dollars  saved  out,  so 
they  told  me,  and  he  put  that  in  the  bank 
over  to  Bozeman.  It  riled  them  people  at 
Bozeman  a  good  deal  to  think  that  any 
body  not  from  Bozeman  should  have  one 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars  inaccessible 
in  their  town.  So  one  day  when  old  man 
Dwelley  was  there  they  fined  him  one 


48 MAWS  VACATION 

thousand  five  hundred  dollars  for  killing 
a  elk  out  of  season,  or  something.  That 
made  him  mad.  Still  and  all,  he  had  his 
twelve  thousand  dollars  left,  not  mention 
ing  what  he  got  for  his  beaver  hides. 

"One  thing  with  another,"  continued 
Maw  after  a  period  of  rumination,  "you 
can't  say  but  what  this  park  is  a  fine  place. 
Of  course  there's  always  a  wonder  in  my 
mind  where  they  get  all  the  hot  water  for 
the  geysers.  It  looks  to  me  like  a  industrial 
waste.  If  the  geysers  could  be  used  for 
laundries,  that  would  be  something  like. 
Then,  again,  they're  all  the  same  color.  If 
they'd  throw  in  some  bluing  now  and  then, 
or  some  red  or  green,  they'd  look  prettier 
— that'd  give  more  variety,  like.  Yet  they 
say  these  geysers  has  been  running  for 
years  and  no  let-up.  Ain't  it  funny  the 
things  you  see,  away  from  home? 

"I  like  to  ride  along  these  roads  up  in 
the  mountains,  and  look  down  at  the 
rivers.  You  get  way  up  above  a  river  and 
it  looks  like  a  long  washboard,  down  be- 


QO 
iT 

a 

a 


•s 

8 


MAWS  VACATION 49 

low,  here  in  the  mountains.  And  I'll  have 
to  say  the  roads  is  crooked.  I  say  to  Paw : 
'We're  all  church  members  except  Cyn- 
thy,  which  went  to  college,  and  if  we  go 
we  go/  And  even  if  we  do— why,  we've 
all  had  a  vacation,  and  I'll  tell  it  to  the 
world  that  a  vacation  trip  once  in  a  life 
time  is  something  no  family  ought  to  be 
without,  no  matter  what  the  preacher  says 
about  idleness.  I'm  strong  for  vacations 
from  this  time  on.  Fact  is,  I  believe  Paw 
and  me  has  got  to  have  them,  though  this 
is  our  first.  And  to  think  we  was  afraid 
to  buy  ice  cream  once,  except  on  the 
Fourth  of  July!  Now,  Paw  goes  right  up 
to  one  of  them  stands  and  buys  five  dol 
lars  of  gasoline  like  it  was  nothing.  Times 
has  changed,  like  I  said.  Lookit  at  our 
car  now.  I  can  remember  back — not  so 
far,  neither — when  if  I  got  a  ride  in  a  side 
bar  buggy  I  thought  I  was  a  mighty  lucky 
girl.  And  here  we  are,  traveling  with 
every  sort  of  comfort  anybody  could  ask." 
There  were  many  applainces  which 


50 MAWS  VACATION 

Maw  gradually  had  installed  for  facilitat 
ing  housekeeping  in  her  day-to-day  camps 
— folding  beds,  a  cracker-box  pantry,  a 
planed  board  for  table,  racks  for  groceries 
and  the  like,  all  strung  alongside  the  car, 
so  numerous  and  extensive  that  by  the 
time  the  Hickory  Bend  Outing  Club's 
great  wall  tent  had  been  added  you  barely 
could  see  the  wheels  underneath  the  mov 
ing  mass.  From  the  midst  of  all  projected 
the  steering  wheel,  which  Paw  grasped  as 
he  sat,  with  only  the  top  of  his  hat  visible 
to  the  naked  eye.  Maw  rode  beside  him 
somewhere.  I  never  was  able  satisfacto 
rily  to  determine  where  Cynthy,  Hattie 
and  Rowena  rode.  Danny,  the  family  dog, 
had  his  seat  outside  on  the  fender,  against 
the  hood.  I  presume  Danny's  feet  got  hot 
sometimes  on  the  up  grades,  but  Maw 
said  he  ought  to  be  used  to  it  by  now. 


All  Ready  for  Bud 

ON  TOP  of  the  load,  with  the  stock 
projecting    well    forward,    I    quite 
often    was    able   to    recognize    old 
Suse,    the  ancient   firearm  of   geyserlike 
proclivities.      Maw  said  she  always  felt 
more  comfortable  when  there  was  a  gun 
round,  because  she  never  could  get  used 
to  bears,  no  matter  how  afraid  they  was 
of  folks. 

"When  we  come  out  here  we  didn't 
know  but  what  we  could  get  a  shot  on  the 
quiet  at  a  buffalo,  Paw  never  having  killed 
one  in  his  life.  Plenty  people  believes  the 
same  till  they  get  here.  When  we  was  at 
the  ranger  station  we  seen  one  Arkansas 
car  come  in  with  six  shooting  irons,  and 
they  all  made  a  kick  about  having  their 
guns  locked  up.  Then  there  was  a  deputy 
sheriff  from  Arizony,  with  woolly  pants 
on,  and  he  made  a  holler  about  them  lock 
ing  up  his  six-shooter.  'This  here  may 


52 MAWS  VACATION 

cost  me  my  life,'  said  he  to  the  ranger.  'I 
dunno  for  sure  that  Bud  Cottrell  is  in  this 
here  park,  but  he  might  be ;  and  if  I  should 
run  across  him  I  serve  notice  on  you  right 
now  I'm  going  to  bust  this  seal.' 

1  'My!'  says  the  ranger  to  this  Arizony 
man,  *y°u  look  to  me  like  a  sort  of  fero 
cious  person.  Have  you  killed  many  peo 
ple?' 

"That  sort  of  quieted  him  down.  'Well, 
no,*  says  he,  'I  ain't  never  killed  nobody, 
but  I've  saw  it  did,  and  if  I  ever  meet  Bud 
Cottrell  I  shore  am  going  to  bust  this  seal.' 

I  ain't  ever  heard  whether  he  busted  it  or 

.  i» 
not. 

"Funniest  thing  to  me  about  this  here 
park,"  commented  Paw,  "is  that  they  call 
me  a  sagebrusher  and  the  people  at  the 
hotels  dudes.  And  the  girls  in  the  hotel 
dining  rooms  they  call  savages,  though 
some  of  them  wears  specs,  and  most  of 
them  is  school-teachers,  with  a  few  ste 
nographers  throwed  in.  Why  they  should 
call  them  people  savages  is  what  I* can't 


MAWS  VACATION 53 

understand.  And  what  do  they  mean  by 
dude  wrangling,  mister?" 

I  explained  to  Paw  that  this  was  a  new 
industry  recently  sprung  up  in  the  West, 
among  those  residents  of  adjacent  states 
who  take  out  camping  and  hunting  par 
ties,  or  even  such  persons  as  desire  to  see 
mountain  scenery  and  the  footprints  of 
large  game,  formerly  embedded  in  the  soil 
and  now  protected  by  log  parapets. 

"So  that's  what  it  is,"  nodded  Maw  as 
I  gave  this  information.  "I  suppose  it's 
just  part  of  the  funny  things  that  happens 
back  here.  Such  things  as  a  person  does 
see  on  a  vacation!  Don't  it  beat  all? 
Now  1  caught  Hattie  walking  off  towards 
the  electric  light  last  night  with  a  young 
man  that  had  specs  and  leather  leggins  like 
the  officers  has,  and  I  declare  if  she  didn't 
tell  me  he  was  a  perf  essor  of  geology  down 
at  Salt  Lake  or  Omaha.  Once  I  give  a 
quarter  for  a  tip  to  a  man  that  brought  me 
some  gasoline,  and  I  declare  if  I  didn't  find 
out  he  teaches  law  in  a  university  some- 


54 MAWS  VACATION 

wheres!  Then,  they  tell  me  that  the 
young  man  who  peels  potatoes  in  the 
kitchen  back  of  our  camp  has  only  one 
more  year  to  get  through  Princeton — 
whoever  Princeton  is.  I  wish  he  was 
through  now,  because  he  sings  things. 

"We're  making  quite  a  stay  here  in  the 
park — longer  than  what  we  allowed  we 
would  do,  Paw  and  me.  The  girls  seem 
to  be  having  a  sort  of  good  time  here,  one 
thing  with  another.  You  can't  leave  a 
girl  alone  anywheres  here,  unless  she's 
taken  in  by  some  perfessor  or  ranger  or 
guide  or  cook  or  chauffeur  or  something, 
who  comes  along  and  carries  her  off  to 
show  her  the  bears  or  Old  Faithful  or  In 
spiration  Point  or  something.  Seems  to 
me  like  we've  heard  them  words  before, 
too — and  then  there's  Lovers'  Leap  and 
the  Devil's  Slide.  We've  even  got  them 
in  loway,  where  the  hills  is  rough. 

"Set  down  on  the  log  here,"  said  Maw, 
"and  rest  yourself,  and  I'll  build  up  the 
fire.  Ain't  it  fine  outdoors?  I  declare,  I 


MAW'S  VACATION 55 

let  out  my  corsets  four  inches  above  and 
below,  I  breathe  that  much  deeper  here 
in  the  mountains;  and  the  air  makes  you 
feel  so  fine.  What  was  I  saying? — oh, 
about  my  knitting.  You  see  at  home, 
when  I  get  my  work  done,  I  knit  or  crochet 
or  embroider.  Mary's  baby  is  a  right  cute 
little  thing,  and  I  like  to  sew  or  knit  things 
anyways.  But  Joseph  said  to  me :  'Now, 
Maw !  Now  you  forget  it ;  we're  going  to 
have  a  vacation  now,  with  no  work  at  all 
for  no  one  at  all,  and  all  strings  off.  We're 
just  going  to  have  one  mighty  good  time,' 
says  Joseph  to  me.  At  first,  having  noth 
ing  to  do,  I  felt  right  strange,  but  I'm  get 
ting  used  to  it  now,  though  I  do  think  I 
could  knit  comfortable  while  setting 
watching  the  geysers  spout. 

"I  dunno  how  we  happened  to  come  out 
so  far  as  this — we  didn't  allow  to  spend 
over  two  hundred  dollars,  but  I  allow 
we've  spent  over  five  hundred  or  six  hun 
dred  dollars  now.  The  funny  thing  is,  Paw 
don't  seem  to  care.  He  always  was  ag- 


56 MAWS  VACATION 

gressive.  He  just  driv  right  on  West  till 
we  got  here.  He  said  his  Paw  traveled 
across  all  that  country  in  a  ox  team,  and 
he  allowed  he  could  in  a  automobile.  So 
we  done  it,  and  here  we  are.  I  don't  care 
if  we  don't  get  home  till  after  harvest." 

Many  and  many  a  talk  I  had  with  Maw, 
dear  old  Maw,  some  sixty  thousand  of 
her,  this  past  summer.  The  best  of  all 
vacations  is  to  see  someone  else  having  a 
vacation  who  never  has  had  a  vacation 
before  in  his  or  her  life.  The  delight  of 
Maw  in  this  new  phase  of  her  existence 
has  been  my  main  delight  for  many  a  week 
in  the  months  spent,  not  so  much  in  watch 
ing  geysers  as  in  watching  Maw.  Some 
times  I  steal  away  from  the  pleadings  of 
the  saxophone,  leaving  even  Stella 
O'Cleave  with  the  slumberous  eyes  sitting 
alone  at  the  log  rail  of  Old  Faithful  Inn. 
I  want  to  see  Maw  once  more,  and  talk 
with  her  once  again  about  the  virtues  of  a 
vacation  now  and  again;  at  least  once  in 
a  lifetime  spent  in  work  for  others. 


MAW'S  VACATION 


I  do  not  always  find  the  girls  at  home 
in  the  camp.  For  some  reason  they  seem 
of  late  to  be  out  later  and  later  of  even 
ings.  Paw  has  found  a  crony  here  and 
there  about  the  camps,  and  swaps  remin 
iscences  of  this  sort  or  that.  Sometimes 
I  find  Maw  alone,  sitting  on  the  log,  gaz 
ing  into  her  little  camp  fire.  Once,  I  re 
call,  one  of  the  girls  was  at  home. 

"Roweny!"  called  out  Maw  suddenly. 
"Roweny,  where  are  you  ?  Come  and  talk 
to  the  gentleman." 

A  voice  replied  from  the  other  side  of 
the  car,  where  Rowena  was  sitting  on  the 
running  board.  I  discovered  her,  chin  in 
hand,  looking  out  into  the  dark. 

"I  was  afraid  some  perfessor  had  got 
her,"  explained  Maw  to  me.  "Come  on 
out,  Roweny,  and  set  by  the  fire.  This 
gentleman  seems  sort  of  nice,  and  he's 
old." 

Rowena,  seventeen  years  of  age,  un 
crossed  her  long  young  limbs  and  came 
out  of  the  darkness,  seating  herself  on 


58 MAWS  VACATION 

the  running  board  on  our  side,  where  the 
firelight  shone  on  her  clean  young  fea 
tures,  her  splendid  young  figure  of  an 
American  girl.  She  was  comely  enough 
in  her  spiral  putties  and  her  tanned  boots 
as  she  sat,  her  small  round  chin  on  the 
hand  whose  arm  was  supported  by  a  knee. 
Rowena  appeared  downcast.  While  Maw 
was  busy  a  moment  later,  I  asked  her  why. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  the  mountain 
moon  again ;  for  Rowena,  seventeen  years 
of  age,  once  more  looked  gloomily  out  in 
to  the  night. 

"If  I  thought  I  could  ever  find  a  man 
that  would  understand  me  I  believe  I 
would  marry  him!"  said  she,  as  has  every 
young  girl  in  her  time. 

"Tut,  tut!  Rowena!"  I  replied.  "I 
believe  that  I  understand  you,  simple  as 
I  am  myself,  and  you  need  not  marry  me 
at  all.  I  understand  you  perfectly.  You 
are  just  a  fine  young  girl,  out  on  almost 
your  first  vacation,  with  your  Maw.  It  is 
the  moon,  Rowena.  It  is  youth,  Rowena, 


MAWS  VACATION 59 

and  the  air  of  the  hills.  Believe  me,  it 
will  all  come  right  when  the  cook  has  fin 
ished  his  Princeton;  of  that  I  am  sure. 

"And  Rowena,"  I  added,  "you  will 
grow  up  after  a  while — you  will  grow  up 
to  be  a  wholesome,  useful  American 
woman,  precisely  like  your  Maw." 

"Precisely?"  said  Rowena,  smiling. 

But  I  saw  how  soft  her  eye  was,  after 
all,  when  I  mentioned  Maw — her  Maw, 
who  came  out  of  another  day;  who  has 
worked  so  hard  she  is  uncomfortable  now 
without  her  knitting  when  Old  Faithful 
plays. 

"Come,  Rowena,"  said  I,  and  held  out 
my  hand  to  her.  "Let  us  go." 

"Land  sakes!"  exclaimed  Maw,  just 
then  emerging  into  the  firelight  of  the 
sagebrush  camp.  "I  almost  got  a  turn. 
One  of  them  two  bears,  Teddy  and  Eymo- 
gene,  is  always  hanging  round  us  begging 
for  doughnuts,  and  here  it  was  standing 
on  its  hind  legs  and  mooching  its  nose, 
and  I  stepped  right  into  it.  I  declare,  I 


60 MAWS  VACATION 

can't  hardly  get  used  to  bears.  There 
ain't  none  in  loway.  But  if  Eymogene 
gets  into  my  bed  again  tonight  I  declare 
I'll  bust  her  on  the  snoot,  no  matter  what 
the  park  regulations  is.  People  has  got  to 
sleep.  Not  that  you  girls  seem  to  be 
troubled  about  sleeping.  Where  were 
you  going?" 

She  spoke  as  Rowena  and  I  stood  hand 
in  hand,  after  so  brief  an  acquaintance  as 
might  not  elsewhere  have  served  us,  ex 
cept  in  these  vacation  hills. 

"I  was  going,"  said  I,  "to  take  Rowena 
up  past  the  camp  and  beyond  the  hotel 
and  the  electric  light  to  the  curio  store.  I 
was  going  to  get  something  for  Rowena 
to  bring  to  you — a  sort  of  present  from  a 
nice  old  man,  you  know." 

"As  which?"  said  Maw. 

"I  was  going  with  Rowena,  Maw,"  said 
I,  "to  get  you  a  present." 

"As  which?" 

"And  it  shall  be  a  leather  pillow;  and 
on  it  shall  be  the  word  'Mother.' 


MAW'S  VACATION 


You  see,  the  moon  on  the  sage  makes 
a  strange  light. 

It  may  even  enable  you  to  see  into  the 
hearts  of  other  people. 


Standard   Books 

on  the 

Yellowstone 


HAYNES  GUIDE.  The  Complete  Handbook  of 
Yellowstone  Park;  1921  ed.  8  vo.,  160  pp.  Officially 
approved  by  The  National  Park  Service,  Washington, 
D.  C.,  and  The  Yellowstone  Trail  Association.  Illus 
trated,  maps,  diagrams,  charts.  Descriptive,  Historical, 
Geological,  and  contains  the  Motorists'  Complete 
Road  Log;  By  J.  E.  Haynes,  B.  A 83c  postpaid 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  YELLOWSTONE  PARK. 
Diary  of  the  Expedition  to  the  Yellowstone  and  Firehole 
Rivers  in  1870.  8  vo.,  board,  122  pp.  Illustrated; 
Maps;  Drawings;  By  Nathaniel  P.  Langford,  first 
superintendent  of  the  Park,  who  served  for  five  years 
without  pay  to  save  the  Park  for  the  American 
people $1.62  postpaid 

YELLOWSTONE  IN  JINGLETONE,  a  De  Luxe 
booklet  of  catchy  jingles  containing  "Geysergrams," 
"Recollections  of  a  Barn  Dog."  "The  Buffalo  Stam 
pede,"  "Paintin*  the  Canyon,"  etc.,  in  envelope  suit 
able  for  mailing;  By  C.  A.  Brewer 55c  postpaid 

Published  by 

J.  E.  HAYNES 

ST.  PAUL 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


NOV  2  4 1998 


CAYLORD 

PRINTIO  IN  U    »    A 

3  1970  00671  6 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000319424    8 


Univers 

Sout 

Lib 


